A story from a friend living in DC.
Hi Karen,
… I was consulted about tea, of all things, at work last week. It was too funny. There was a Chinese delegation coming and the director wanted her assistant to prepare loose tea…the assistant contacted me in a panic, saying “I hear you’re an expert…” (Um, no, I just walk to Teaism, don’t think that qualifies me as “expert.”) Oh, the kicker was that she (the director) wanted to, for sentimental reasons, serve this million-year-old oolong that her dead mom left her. It smelled god-awful but tasted… okay. But there are no words to describe how truly shiteous the ancient ceylon tea she had tasted (we did a taste test first). The best way I can describe is that it tasted like hot pickle juice. I think I convinced them not to serve that one. I got a headache and my mouth didn’t recover for five hours after just one teensy sip. And I talked her out of attempting to serve the oolong kung-fu cha style at a business meeting. There could have been an international incident.
In other tea news, I did high tea again with friends over the weekend at The Willard and someone else must have complained, because this time the tea was loose. (yay!) But jeeze louise, even though I enjoyed it, $50 is still so steep (no pun intended!).
Yours in tea and sympathy,
Silvia
it’s so pretty.
Professor John Foxe got me excited about science of tea again. He conducts research on theanine and how it affects brain function. At a recent talk, he explained how the synergy between theanine and caffeine (both present in the tea plant) increases the brain’s ability to focus. This higher state of focus can be linked to the feeling of “well being” that has been associated with tea drinking for centuries.
Theanine is only naturally occuring in the tea plant (Camellia sinensis), and a rare variety of mushroom. It’s an amino acid that crosses the blood brain barrier, so it has pychoactive properties. Taste-wise, it’s sweet. Here is a great resource on wikiHow.
Hollyawesome has left the ship for warmer, Pacific waters out West. Lots of love and luck to you! May the universe always provide. Thanks for showing me how to make Turkish Tea.
Suzanne and Jason are in China right now and sent me this awesome sign.
Aurora and I had a matcha tasting aboard the Wild Turkey. I’ve been working on sourcing green tea powders outside of Japan, to see what’s out there and see if any of it is good. We compared two premium grades, one from Japan and one from Korea. I was telling Aurora that whisking matcha should sound like gently, quickly sweeping a floor, and then you’ve got to drink it right away while the tea is momentarily suspended in the water. She laughed and said the nuances of preparing matcha were similar to sailing a boat.
The taste of the two teas? Japanese matcha, with centuries of cultivation, has a much more refined taste, that’s very creamy and balanced. Korea has only been making green tea powder for 50 years, so the tea is very much like a young buck, with lots of punch and wildness.
Judd Cove Oysters
I was ten when I ate my first raw oyster. I’ve always liked them, although as a kid it was more about the dare. Now, it’s about taste and the feeling of being close, intimate with the ocean.
Two weeks ago, I schucked my first ones, with Aurora, on the dock of West Sound, Orcas Island. With a screw driver and hammer, we did our best, perfecting our technique each night. Let me tell you, these oysters are worth any distance travelled. Sweet, buttery, creamy, impossible to describe how pure, oh, just so delicious.
The Judd Cove Oyster Bed. I’d never seen one before, it surprised me how they worked. It’s a lot of sticks with ropes tied around them, giving the oysters a nice place to attach. It was low tide when this picture was taken, out of the car window, as we were heading into town.
This is Aurora eating the crab we caught. She is my hero. If I had any stress in my NYC body, she instantly saw it and took it away with laughter, seriously delicious cocktails and activities. Maybe she’ll write a book someday sharing her life secrets, if we are lucky.
Look out Springfield, I just got Simpsonized!
